A new repository uses zlib storage, which doesn't need a requirement $ hg init default $ cd default $ cat .hg/requires dotencode fncache generaldelta revlogv1 store testonly-simplestore (reposimplestore !) $ touch foo $ hg -q commit -A -m 'initial commit with a lot of repeated repeated repeated text to trigger compression' $ hg debugrevlog -c | grep 0x78 0x78 (x) : 1 (100.00%) 0x78 (x) : 110 (100.00%) $ cd .. Unknown compression engine to format.compression aborts $ hg --config experimental.format.compression=unknown init unknown abort: compression engine unknown defined by experimental.format.compression not available (run "hg debuginstall" to list available compression engines) [255] A requirement specifying an unknown compression engine results in bail $ hg init unknownrequirement $ cd unknownrequirement $ echo exp-compression-unknown >> .hg/requires $ hg log abort: repository requires features unknown to this Mercurial: exp-compression-unknown! (see https://mercurial-scm.org/wiki/MissingRequirement for more information) [255] $ cd .. #if zstd $ hg --config experimental.format.compression=zstd init zstd $ cd zstd $ cat .hg/requires dotencode exp-compression-zstd fncache generaldelta revlogv1 store testonly-simplestore (reposimplestore !) $ touch foo $ hg -q commit -A -m 'initial commit with a lot of repeated repeated repeated text' $ hg debugrevlog -c | grep 0x28 0x28 : 1 (100.00%) 0x28 : 98 (100.00%) $ cd .. Specifying a new format.compression on an existing repo won't introduce data with that engine or a requirement $ cd default $ touch bar $ hg --config experimental.format.compression=zstd -q commit -A -m 'add bar with a lot of repeated repeated repeated text' $ cat .hg/requires dotencode fncache generaldelta revlogv1 store testonly-simplestore (reposimplestore !) $ hg debugrevlog -c | grep 0x78 0x78 (x) : 2 (100.00%) 0x78 (x) : 199 (100.00%) #endif